


Last Call

by parttimefemmefatale (writingramblr)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bartender Rose, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, all the doctors for Rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 11:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4057534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingramblr/pseuds/parttimefemmefatale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a bar on the edge of London that two souls frequent, and though neither of them know it, eventually their stories will intertwine and their timelines will dance together for eternity.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Also known as a small ficlet inspired by Billie Piper's memories of filming the 50th.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Call

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Pink and Yellow Girl](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4047526) by [parttimefemmefatale (writingramblr)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingramblr/pseuds/parttimefemmefatale). 



> this is set an a separate universe but could be seen as a parallel one.

It’s an hour before last call, and there he comes.

Every night at the same time, the man with the grey beard and white hair and tired eyes comes in and sits down, orders a glass of red wine, and sips it until its gone.

Rose Tyler wants to know why.

She wants to talk to the grizzled old man and learn what made him so sad, and why he looks so lost.

He’s been coming in for over a month now, and she gets a sense that he’s trying to run from something.

Trying to avoid the inevitable.

Not death, no, that’s too easy.

He doesn’t hold himself like a man with a ravaging disease.

It’s something else.

***

The Doctor is tired.

So tired.

The earth wine that he drinks to keep himself from considering the possibility isn’t very strong, but its enough.

A bartender with light blonde hair always watches him when he arrives and when he leaves, presumably to ensure he doesn’t accidentally walk into the street and get himself killed.

Not that it would matter, or even delay anything.

He’d just make a scene.

He sits down with a huff of a sigh, and deep down he knows this is the last time he will do this.

The moment is coming, and he cannot keep running.

***

“Hello love, what’ll you have?”

Rose knows exactly what he’ll say, but she asks anyway.

Tonight he looks right up at her, and meets her gaze dead on,

“Red wine, if you’d be so kind.”

“Of course.”

He always pays in cash, so she’s never had any chance to sneak a look at his name on a card or anything, and she’s been a bit intimidated to ask.

Older folks always make her feel incredibly young and foolish. But not him.

If he didn’t look like he expressly wanted to be left alone, she would be happy to sit and chat with him until the bar closed.

It was never that busy around when he came in.

Most folks were home asleep or had moved on to a club or another bar that stayed open later.

***

“What’s your name?”

The question startles him, and the Doctor isn’t really sure he wants to tell her.

She’s been so sweet and kind to him, over the last few weeks.

He can’t help it.

“Doctor.”

She smiles, and he swears there’s a hint of tongue between her crooked white teeth.

“Doctor what?”

He shakes his head, and the grip on his wine glass tightens,

“Just that if you please.”

She nods, and her face sobers,

“Okay. You’ve got it mate. M’Rose.”

He’s looked at her face and studied it enough to have guessed that.

He’s never been psychic but he’s had a knack for knowing names, in all the centuries he’s seen and passed through.

Pink and yellow and heart shaped.

She’s so beautiful.

He wonders if she would have given him more than a glance and a smile out of the goodness of her heart if she’d met his last self.

The one who loved music and books and dancing.

He grimaced at the memory and almost hoped she was happily married with a baby at home.

Then again, why would she always choose the closing shift at a bar if that was the case?

***

That was a profession, not a name.

But if the old bloke wanted to be stubborn, so be it.

Rose didn’t mind.

She did notice how he kept sneaking glances at her, and he thought she didn’t notice.

Or maybe he thought she’d mind, or snap at him for it.

She’d had so much worse in the months of working in a bar.

She’d stopped wearing a name tag for that reason.

Too many catcalls and whistles and demands for free refills, ‘Cause don’t you think I’m handsome Rose?’

She’d never found a patron interesting until this Doctor fellow.

Sure, pretty boys had come and gone, but they were about as substantial as cotton candy floss.

The dust on the Doctor’s leather jacket looked real. But surely he didn’t sleep in a dusty bed, or alleyway?

“Are you all right?”

She finally asked him.

His glass was nearly empty and that meant she wouldn’t see him again for another day.

He looked up at her, brown eyes meeting whiskey colored ones, and she sees something akin to fear and resolution in them,

“No my dear, I’m not. But after tonight, I will be.”

The words unsettle her, but he tosses back the rest of his wine, and slaps down his money on the counter.

It isn’t until he’s already long gone that she notices he paid her for the rest of the week’s worth of wine.

What does it mean?

***

He doesn’t show the next night.

Or the one after.

All week.

Rose is worried.

She asks around, and none of the other bartenders remember his face, or anyone like him.

Most of the bars around town don’t get older patrons like the Doctor bloke.

Rose is practically drowning in worry, for she knows anything could have happened to him.

Old folks fall and break hips or legs and never recover. Heart attacks, if he’d smoked, cancer.

But he’d looked as healthy as a seventy something could.

She works the next month in a daze, and nearly gets herself fired for her lack of focus.

But she starts to improve.

Makes some real friends and slowly stops thinking about the bloke with sad eyes and the world weary face.

***

Every little thing is new.

Sound is sharper, and light is brighter.

But there’s still so much dust and ash.

His black jacket is almost grey with it, and even after he shakes it out, it’s not the same.

The ears are overlarge, and his jaw is just as strong and firm.

Blue eyes now.

Big and wide and full of something like hope, not despair.

Or maybe he’s just being a fool.

He escaped with his life and his TARDIS, but he deserved to die, and for good.

The Doctor sighs, and sets a course for anywhere.

But she knows where he wants to go.

In his hearts.

Deep down, he misses the girl.

The blonde with kind eyes and words, and a soft smile for even an old man.

Well, he’s older now, but at least he looks decent.

Less grandfatherly, and more like someone she might let buy her a drink.

When’s she's not working of course.

He pats his jacket down nervously, and rubs his head.

Not grey or white or overlong.

Close cropped and brown.

Like a soldier.

Coming home.

***

It’s the time.

One hour before closing.

Last call.

Rose has long stopped looking for him.

But the door swings open, and the bell dings and she’s biting her tongue at her own stupidity as she turns around.

It’s not him.

It’s a tall lanky bloke in a black leather jacket that looks like it’s been through a battle.

He’s handsome, but not pretty.

“Hello…” Love seems wrong for him. If she were in a flirting mood, she’d say it anyway, but she’s not.

“Rose…”

He whispers, and his blue eyes are gorgeous, wide and expectant.

“How do you know my name?”

Rose pats her chest, prepared to laugh at herself, but she hasn’t got her nametag on.

She’d started wearing it again a few days back, but she’d plucked it off after midnight.

The man sits down, and swallows, before replying,

“I’ll take a glass of red if you please.”

Rose frowns.

“Are you sure? There’s lots of beers on tap.”

The man shakes his head, and nods towards the rack of wine glasses behind her.

“Red please.”

She’s already poured it and handed it to him before she realizes how familiar he feels.

His fingers brush over hers as he takes the glass, and his hands cradle it in his palms as he stares at her.

She knows him.

“Doctor…”

She’d never seen him smile, and she doesn’t know how its possible.

But it’s him.

***

Rose is clever.

She’s brilliant.

The Doctor is already praying to any gods who will listen that she’ll say yes when he asks her to come with him.

He drinks the wine more slowly than he’s ever done before, and he hopes she’ll accept his apology.

It’s adorable and endearing how nervous he makes her now.

He’s incredibly flattered when she tells him he looks like a roman god.

She doesn’t ask about his absence.

But he’ll tell her, gladly when she does.

She brushes a hand over his shoulder, trying to get rid of the dust, and he shakes his head.

It’s an exercise in futility.

But he loves her for trying.

How easily the word comes to mind.

She used to address him by it every night.

She’s more than worthy of the term.

***

The look of awe in her eyes and the drop of her jaw at the sight of his ship are more precious to him than he can imagine.

She speaks the words so many have before, and he nods.

It leads effortlessly into the question of what he is, and he tells her.

She accepts him.

Of course she does.

She stands before him, beside the console of the ship dressed in frayed jeans and a bright yellow crop top and she tells him how much she missed him.

He’s still somewhat unused to this form but now he towers over her and it’s nothing to sweep her into a hug.

But it’s her who steps back and kisses him.

First it’s soft and sweet and just an expression of adoration.

Then it morphs into something more desperate and full of unspoken things.

It’s a thing of wonder.

The Doctor thought there was nothing left living for.

But there was always her.

In the back of his mind and the forefront of his memory.

Her name is Rose.

***

**END**

**Author's Note:**

> i'm astonished and so flattered at the response this garnered when i posted it to my tumblr, so thanks for that everyone!


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